On Thu, 29 Jun 1995, Andy Daitsman wrote:
> Chris, I grew up in the US student left, and I've met people like Scott and
> his "friend" in Minneapolis in much more than one unpleasant encounter. My
> opinion is that Scott is a cadre in an intensely dogmatic, highly sectarian
> Trotskyist splinter group. The rhetoric and the style of attack are classic
> and unmistakeable. Though I've never met Erwin, in fact never heard of him
> until a week or two ago, I would wager that his only crime is to have been a
> member of the Communist Party. Scott took his class specifically for the
> purpose of engaging him in the Stalin-Trotsky debate, and tried to hijack
> the class when Erwin wouldn't fall for it.
While that may indeed be a part of this picture, it misses one of
the main reasons U.S. Trotskyists are so far to the 'left' of the CPUSA:
the *brutal* 'stalinism' of the CP'ers (there's that nasty, undefined,
'S'-word again...)
Ask yourself: why SHOULDN'T 'Trotskyists' be able to take a
marxist course?? That there was a 100% chance of a showdown between them
and the CP 'authority figure' (a professor, with the legal right to use
bourgeois power to his own ends) has AS MUCH to do with the rigid, abusive
policy -- STRAIGHT from 'stalinist' Mockba -- directed at ALL Trotskyist
parties, WORLDWIDE, at ALL turns, by the CPUSA, and all other 'real'
communist parties...
> The most serious red-baiting I've ever experienced in the US has come from
> ultra-left Trotskyists. (Well, until I started hanging with right-wing
> Cubans on the Internet. There are intriguing similarities in their thought
> processes...)
And there's not a little baiting going on right here from the
'academic' types...
> Yeah, and when you dig deeper it still doesn't make any sense. I've always
> thought the political line of the ultra-left was determined in the last
> instance by police provocateurs.
Ya, and the CP types were pretty quick to label marxists they
didn't agree with as 'agents provocateur'. As a matter of fact, the local
CP old-guard (i.e. those stalinists who were left after all the defections
and purges) were saying behind my back that _I_ was a police spy *AND* a
Trotskyist! (I had only wanted to discuss the Trotsky bugbear...)
I've seen real police agents in action, and while you are correct
that their extremist behaviour is similar to ultra-left antics (where do
the academics place me now??), I'd _generally_ paint their efforts as
disruptive ONLY (I know that the smarter ones are cagier, and actually
directing their 'sectarianism', but that is another story... (the one
about the founding of the Canadian CP!! :)) Trotskyists and the other
'ultra-left' marxists are at least willing to put the questions DIRECTLY
to the CP'ers (even if it's only by storming the microphones! :) The
CP'ers are ALWAYS retreating into the laager -- thus the eternal mexican
stand-off...
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Jim Jaszewski <jjazz at freenet.hamilton.on.ca>
WWW homepage: <http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ab975/Profile.html>
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